Thatcher, who died Monday, had met customers one-by-one behind a security partition. She didn’t have time to sign her memoir for everyone before she had to leave. But, at the end, horrified her security detail when she walked up the store window and waved to those waiting outside.

“She was lovely, very poised and dignified,” Newell says.

The next day she addressed the San Diego Rotary Club and sailors aboard the Kitty Hawk.

Bill Black, of Fairbanks Ranch, helped arrange that visit here, which one of her handlers later told him was the highlight of her U.S. trip. Black met Thatcher on several occasions while assistant ambassador of protocol under President George H.W. Bush from 1989-’91.

“I met over half the heads of state while in that position,” Black says. “She was head and shoulders my favorite. She was articulate, gracious and cooperative with security and with all the people who put the events together.”

Black later served as California’s chief of protocol under Gov. Pete Wilson and as honorary British consul to San Diego for seven years. “Her timing was very good. She was prime minister at a time when England really needed her,” he says. The “Iron Lady” was a well chosen moniker: “She said what she meant, and she meant what she said.”

G.T. Frost Jr., Rotary Club president during her visit, says Thatcher’s 30-minute, no-holds-barred speech, delivered without notes, was greeted with a rare standing ovation. “It was absolutely the highlight of my presidency.” Thatcher was introduced by Gov. Pete Wilson who said she was the person who "put the great back in Great Britain."

The British politician previously had visited Camp Pendleton in March of 1991, where she spoke to students, sipped tea with military wives and ate with Marines in the mess hall.

Make room for Mom:Carol Montgomery and two other seasoned Olympics athletes shared the winners’ podium for the top three spots in Sunday’s Carlsbad 5000 Women’s Masters race. But Carol’s mother, Lenore Montgomery, stole the limelight.

Lenore Montgomery, 82, sets 5K world speed record for her age.
— Paul Nestor/Competitor Group

Lenore Montgomery, 82, sets 5K world speed record for her age.
/ Paul Nestor/Competitor Group

Lenore, a Canadian who lives in Malibu, broke the women’s world speed record for her age – 82. She finished the 3.1-mile course in just under 29 minutes, says race organizer Tracy Sundlun. Lenore didn’t, however, break the 80-to-84 age group world record last Sunday. Then again, she didn’t need to. She established that record here last year, when she ran the race nine seconds faster.